


Monster, Monster

by timeheist



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 20:16:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/422771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeheist/pseuds/timeheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Avengers AU. Tony is a vampire and Bruce is a werewolf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monster, Monster

Four years ago Anthony Stark’s life had changed forever. Afghanistan, the explosion, the arc reactor. Then Nick Fury had walked into his life, cocky bastard he was – the irony was not lost on Tony – and he, the billionaire playboy philanthropist genius, hadn’t thought that things could get much weirder. But then Pepper had moved in. And then of course, a year later everything had turned on its head all over again and even S.H.I.E.L.D and the Avengers Initiative seemed like a walk in the park compared to this one very big problem that all the money and intelligence in the world couldn’t even begin to solve.

To Tony the hardest part to swallow was that the bastard had torn through his suit as though it was paper. He had made the suit so that nothing could penetrate it; of course, he hadn’t had the time to test it out against, say, adamantium claws, or laser vision. He’d not thought to proof his suit for supernatural threats and for that he had to blame himself. It had made him feel week, a failure, as though this one thing that he was supposed to do right had somehow all been a lie. He supposed the best thing that had come of his sudden unexpected immortality was a slightly greater sense of humility.

People who worked in Stark Industries had started to go missing and though he didn’t usually care all that much what his employees got up to (so long as they weren’t stealing from him, and besides, he could always hire better ones) he could recognise a pattern when he saw one. His ego had pointed out to him that he could get all the credit if he personally went out there and took back what was his. Heroics didn’t even begin to come into it. But when he found the intruder – killer would have been a better word, or starving beast – it had ambushed him before Jarvis had even finished his sentence of warning.

Of course the self-professed ‘vampire’ hadn’t much liked the taste of all the stray metals in Tony’s blood and that was the only thing that saved his life, which was just as well. He didn’t have nine. The thing had gone for the killing blow, intent on ridding the police of their one witness to the murder and consumption of mostly-innocent people, but on a whim Tony had turned his shaking palms towards the thing and the heat and light of the suit, working by sheer miracle of science alone, had been enough to all but vaporise it. Later on they’d burned the body.

Tony had crawled home to Pepper, and his wounds hadn’t taken too long to heal. The problem was too little marks on his neck, parallel to each other, which stoically refused to. Hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D’s computers had been enough to convince Tony to take those vampire claims a little bit more seriously but even they didn’t seem to have a cure or any explanation, and neither did any of the crackpots and professionals that he or Pepper had managed to track down. Coulson worked it out – or maybe Pepper had told him, Tony wasn’t sure – and at least after that they didn’t need to break into blood banks to keep Tony fed so long as for once, he agreed to keep his mouth shut. He did. The public didn’t need another story about Iron Man quite yet.

Coulson even managed to put him in touch with Dr Hank McCoy, of the X-Men; the only man or mutant who had ever come close to a cure for the x-gene, no matter how quiet that fact was kept. But even the esteemed doctor hadn’t been able to find a cure, only a middle ground between the reactor and the ‘disease’ that let Tony feel a little bit more human, a little more himself. He had left – he hated being a freak. And McCoy was simply another dead end… Until, of course, he’d mentioned a one Dr Bruce Banner that had recently made the front page for ripping a university laboratory apart and disappearing into the night.

Tony couldn’t shake the feeling that the claims of ‘inhuman claws and teeth’ and ‘horrendous green fur’ were more than just students and cops tripping on whatever chemicals the man had smashed the bottles of when whatever experiment he’d been working on had gone so wrong. He’d maybe found out if he found him, but the man had gone so well into hiding that the cops, the X-Men, and even S.H.I.E.L.D seemed to have lost track of where the genius had disappeared to. So far as Tony was concerned the mystery was a welcome relief from his angst and a challenge bundled into one package.

He had money, resources, and twenty four hours of sleeplessness at his disposal, and with Pepper having moved in with her mother until things were normal again, he threw all of them into tempting whatever Banner had turned into out of whatever hole he was hiding in. Persistent as he was, it only took a year. The doctor was in India, trying to redeem his mortal soul or some shit. Tony didn’t care, he just wanted to pick the man’s brain for some kind of cure, no matter the cost. Still, once he found him he bided his time, and in the end paid one kid a small fortune to lead Banner to the edge of town with a sob story. He paid another to throw Black Widow and S.H.I.E.L.D off the same scent, all the way to the other end of town.

But even though he’d saved him from S.H.I.E.L.D’s natural heinous plans, the good doctor, man, monster, beast or urban legend who had taken the name of Hulk hadn’t exactly been happy to see him.

\---

“I can’t believe I agreed to this.”

Tony Stark rested his head back against the seat, folding his arms with a decided sense of amusement. “Would you rather I carried you?”

Bruce Banner wrinkled his nose and closed his eyes. “Not particularly.”

“So quit complaining.”

Bruce gave in and punched his nose, biting back a smart retort. It wouldn’t get him anywhere, and would probably put him ten steps backwards. Besides, his thoughts were elsewhere, like on the fact that he was on a bloody plane. How anyone could have thought that this was a good idea, he couldn’t work out. He was, and there could be no argument, the absolute worst possible person to ever be up in the air, trapped in a pressurized steel can along with three other, very fragile, people. Stark was a fool to have suggested it but maybe Bruce was an even greater fool for following the plan willingly just because some rich prick in an expensive suit had dangled the proverbial carrot in front of his face. On the other hand, that carrot happened to be made of solid, double-figure carat gold. No pun intended.

The flight from India to America, even when the transport of choice was a private, cloaked and unlisted Stark Industries yet, would take close to sixteen hours. Bruce supposed the right, and safest thing to do would be to try and get some sleep, but it didn’t take long to realise that sleep was off the guards. Stark snored. But at least – even if he did look like he needed some sleep himself, after flying all the way to India on his own power suit – had found him a book. Presumably he meant well, but book-bound porn wasn’t a great idea either. And then the hostess had offered him a massage (either she didn’t know who he was or she was very polite) but he couldn’t take that chance, either, as lovely as it sounded. Not that she was his type. And so after eight hours of trying to sleep beside a constantly fidgeting Bruce, Stark had finally lost his temper and, of all things, threatened to bite him.

“Bite… Me?” The second Bruce broke out of his blinding spell and responded (well. At least the threat had distracted him), Tony was waving his hand facetiously and fishing a tablet and a stylus out of his chest pocket. It was a clear dismissal, but Bruce didn’t give in that easily. He took a deep breath. “What use would that do?”

“Peace and quiet. Forget I said anything.” Muttered Tony, whose need to have the last word seemed almost to be compulsive. Well, that fit the spoilt millionaire with a hero-complex that television made him out to be, Bruce decided. He raised an eyebrow, and Tony pointed at the pouch on the seat in front of him, where the earlier proffered book had been rudely stowed. “Read your book.”

“You mean your porn.” Bruce chose to let the man change the subject, for now. He’d bring it up later. Instead, he brandished the book with a smirk, finding that he was relaxing somewhat in the interaction.

“It’s not porn, it’s romance.”

“Gay romance?”

Bruce turned the book over, tapping the blurb with one fingertip. Tony inflated his cheeks, swallowed, and leaned right across Bruce’s chest to snatch the book from his now outstretched arm. Bruce could feel the metal of his famous arc reactor catch on the buttons of his shirt, and his breath hitched. Tony seemed none the wiser, or chose to ignore it as Bruce turned his head to look out the opposite window. “It’s Pepper’s.” As tony put the book back in the seat pocket in front of him, Tony realised that he was already a little warmer under the collar. Tony smiled. “What’s the problem, anyway?”

“Nothing.”

And with that, Bruce followed Stark’s advice, rolled over, and tried to get some sleep again.

\---

“You didn’t tell me you were a vampire!”

“Mind your temper – you might wake up our other house guest.”

This was how most of their conversations started; either as arguments, or scientific debates, which would devolve into arguments if given half a minute. Usually the quarrels were fickle, but this time… Bruce hadn’t expected Tony to leave out such an important detail as this, even if he was an entitled, manipulative bastard who answered to nobody. Okay, so maybe they’d only known each other for a month – Tony had wanted to let Bruce settle in before putting him to work on his commission, and explaining why he was freely hiding him from S.H.I.E.L.D – and maybe it was the kind of thing you did tend to keep secret but Bruce spoke from experience when he thought that hiding a monster was never a good idea.

Naturally, so, it hadn’t been a very welcome surprise to walk in to find Tony drinking blood through a bendy straw in a pint glass calm as you like, just as the two of them had been starting to get along. At least, he supposed, he was drinking it out of a glass, and there was a slim packet from a blood bank on the bar behind him, and he wasn’t drinking it out of Bruce’s throat, but that wasn’t the point. Even so, he touched his neck, and in doing so dropped Tony to the floor and realised that he’d been holding him up by the front of the shirt. Which explained why Tony’s voice had been just that little bit strained.

He stepped back hastily, running his hand across his eyes and through his hair as he took a steeling breath. Tony rubbed his throat, keeping one eye on him as he wiped a smudge of blood from the side of his mouth. “I don’t bite. Well,” He grinned, betraying sharpened incisors that Bruce was amazed he had never noticed before. Tony’s smile hadn’t been so broad or open before, he supposed. “Maybe a good steak.”

“And what if you had?” He blurted it out before he could stop himself. Bruce’s voice was oh so very quiet, and he couldn’t help the guilt that they slowly marinated in. After all, he was keeping some pretty big secrets too. “Look, vampirism is a bit more complicated than, like, cancer.”

“You thought it was only that?” Tony blinked, and Bruce nodded sheepishly. “It takes more than a bite,” He continued, by way of explanation, shrugging too easily and touching the side of his neck. “And I’m not a patient man.”

“I’ve heard.”

“You’d go green before I could do anything.”

Bruce’s gaze snapped to attention. Did Tony know? Did Tony… He shook his head, and put his hand over his eyes, aware that he was hiding. Tony had seen the news, that was all. He didn’t know the truth. “Don’t scare me like that.” He gave what he hoped was a sheepish grin. “I’m not patient either.”

“Let me guess.” Tony laughed, stepping forward to clap Bruce around the shoulders and lead him out of the penthouse room. “I won’t like it when you’re mad?”

“Something like that.”

\---

Bruce had been working for hours when Tony walked into the laboratory with two heavy crystal glasses and a very large, very old bottle of scotch. Bruce wasn’t sure whether to laugh or bow at the waist.

“You’re working too hard.”

Bruce wiped his hands needlessly on his jeans, settling on the laughter. “You’re paying me to.”

“Not ‘you’re paying me to, Sir’?”

Bruce ignored him – it was typical Tony, which he was growing to appreciate – and nodded towards the man’s lean hands. “Don’t you drink blood.”

“Less than you’d think. Why?” Tony in turn nodded towards a sleek sofa tucked in behind all the monitors and desks and chemicals, deftly pouring a measure of liquid into each hand even as he walked. He looked over his shoulder, winking. “Are you offering?” Bruce shook his head hurriedly and Tony laughed, reaching out to hand Bruce – who realised he was following him on auto-pilot – one of the glasses, using his free hand to rap his knuckles against the arc reactor. “This little beauty recirculates it, care of one Dr McCoy.” He tilted his head. “Think SCUBA.”

“Fascinating…” Bruce took the glass, impressed by both the mechanism and the name drop, “And you know him?”

“It might pain you to know,” Tony sat down, suddenly, raising his glass in a small salute, “That you were my second choice.”

Bruce put his palm to his chest. “You wound me, Stark.”

“Please.” Bruce clinked his glass, and Tony finally took a drink. Bruce watched him intently, making himself comfortably as he took the other side of the sofa that Tony had patted in invitation. “Call me Sir.”

“Really?”

“No. To cures?”

Tony raised his glass once more and this time, Bruce raised his without a moment’s hesitation and let himself enjoy the moment. What the hell. He did deserve it. “To cures, and new friends.”

A few hours later found Tony sprawled across Bruce’s shoulder with a fourth glass of scotch balanced precariously in one hand. Bruce let out a snore, and nuzzled against Tony’s neck far more relaxed than Tony had ever seen him before. A faint smile was on his lips, and even as Tony grinned in the delirium of alcohol, he pressed a kiss to Bruce’s cheek, wondered what Pepper would think, and raised his glass once more. “To cures, monsters, friends and fucking sexy scientists.”


End file.
